If my ideas of the person had thus confounded
me, my terrors were doubly increased upon entering his chamber: shelves
groaning with ponderous folios and quartos of the most esteemed Latin
and Greek authors, fragments of Grecian and Roman architecture, were
disposed around the room; on the table lay a copy of Stuart's Athens,
with a portfolio of drawings from Palladio and Vitruvius, and Pozzo's
perspective. In a moment the doctor entered, and, advancing towards me,
seized my hand before I could scarcely articulate my respects. "I am
glad to see you--be seated--you are of Eton, I read, an ancient name
and highly respected here--what works have you been lately reading?" I
immediately ran through the list of our best school classics, at which
I perceived the doctor smiled. "You have been treated, I perceive,
like all who have preceded you: the bigotry of scholastic prejudices is
intolerable. I have been for fifty years labouring to remove the veil,
and have yet contrived ~123~~ to raise only one corner of it. Nothing,"
continued the doctor, "has stinted the growth and hindered the
improvement of sound learning more than a superstitious reverence for
the ancients; by which it is presumed that their works form the summit
of all learning, and that nothing can be added to their discoveries.
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